


Finale

by MungoJerry



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, Cycles suck, Family, Far-Future, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Small oneshots, The Triforce, crosspost, dense, soft scifi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:27:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27660656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MungoJerry/pseuds/MungoJerry
Summary: With a simple act by the latest in an endless line of guardians, the chain is broken and the story reaches its logical conclusion.---A small series of one-shots from a far-flung time in Hyrule's future.Chapter 2:  How we got here - On the precipice of Hyrule's latest fall, Fate blinks.
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

published to FF.net: 8/16/2010

* * *

With the beast behind her, felled and hideous still in death, she marched through the clotted clouds of dust and ash until she reached the marble stair. Despite the fierce battle, the steps were still pristine, their surface swimming with rainbows like the surface of an oil slick. She could hear them singing, a choral hum that emanated from the stone and seemed to wash away all the pain that welled from her battered body.

As she raised her face to what lay at the top of the dais, she felt a multitude in her spirit shudder in response- the predecessors, all of those that come before. The chosen ones who bore the seal and sent the beast back to his cage time and time again.

It hung in the air, gold as fire from the center of the earth, gold as the hair of a princess, gold as the light of the sun. It almost blinded her, and when she blinked it left a harsh imprint on the backs of her eyelid- the three triangles. They spun and reformed, both ethereal and heavy as a mountain to the eyes.

On the backs of her eyelids the marks were dark and inverted, outlined in that bright, pale, colorless green favored by the brain and nerves of the eyes.

**_Choose.._.**

She heard them in the back of her mind, a breeze and a trumpet blast in one, a triumverate.

_**One wish is granted to thee... ye who have assembled this sacred Triforce...** _

Absent minded, she wiped her hand on the soft, baggy leather of her pants and reached up to adjust a head-set that wasn't there anymore, smashed to pieces what seemed like ages ago. On her back a pulse pistol clung to its charger, but her hand gripped a tired, purple hilt. The sword weighed heavy, and the point sagged to the ground.

**_One wish..._ **

Courageous guardians of wisdom and reclaimers of power from those who would abuse it. But there was only ever one- wasn't there?

 _Yes... oh yes..._ she heard them whisper from down the long corridor, from a thousand doorways. _Always he returns..._ burning the land and maiming the people, pillager of peace- the beast whose body rots behind you on the old stones, yet his powerful spirit lives, gone again to some dark prison.

Till he swells with power, again and again.

The point of the sword dragged in the ground as she ascended the stair and felt the tone in the stones travel up through her boots, into her feet and her bones, making her whole body hum. The sword vibrated in harmony and what equipment she had shook in a mute racket.

The land rose and fell. Hyrule spread pristine, then burned. She built castles and villages, then burned. She built empires and cities and was consumed. Back into the dark she went, only to rise again and reach the stars, then fall back into the earth like a comet. She built homes of stone, she reclaimed her metals, engines, buried secrets and rose.

_**One wish...** _

She felt the call pulling her. How long would it wait? She could stand for eternity at the foot of the dais. She put a hand on her face then moved it up over blonde hair, a dirtier version of her wiser sister's flax, the flax of a thousand generations. She felt a connection to her sister too- through the triangle- she was safe. She was alright.

But so many. So many so many somanysomanysomany-

A sweet sea of faces she knew and didn't, all gone, taken by the cycle of blight. The corridor moaned, and she felt the weight of it all the way back to the first, the line that reached through time like a fissure, a crack in existence.

_**...these sacred triangles may grant you...** _

But she could reach with a finger, and feel the end of the crack, like the crack that had run over her brother's shattered armor after a blow from the enemy's many hands. She had run her finger from the smoother surface into the hairline fracture that grew and chewed at her finger tip, then caught it as it shrunk, became a line again, and disappeared, and the armor was smooth. Heavy tears had torn into the smear of blood her finger left.

The corridor erupted with doubt and dismay- anger- and she felt her sister grow anxious, but who could do this but her?

She reached with her fingers into the array of gold and light and color, the sound and power consuming her body with intense energy, quieting with a final chime like a far away temple bell as she finally touched the glassy smooth surface. It was warm. She spread the rest of her hand and pressed her palm against it. The corridor roiled as she dropped the sword, not hearing the harsh sound of its fall, and raised her other hand, doing the same to the other triangle, and she pressed her forehead to the topmost. She felt the hum again, rocking into her skull and making her teeth ache. Reassurance welled from the one who had come before her- a too recent predecessor- and she wished she could feel her brother's supportive hand.

And again and again and again and again-

_**What do you desire?** _

The wicked laughter of the beast as it fell came back to her, and she allowed herself a tired grin as the radiant triangles supported the weight of her body.

"I would that you destroyed yourself."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Link still isn't a woman. That doesn't mean the triforce of courage won't be carried by one...


	2. How we got here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A series of moments, beads on a string.

* * *

"Arlana, dearest, it's time to wake up!"

The dark skinned woman stirred in her sleep chamber, wishing she had a pillow to cover her head with and block out the sickly sweet voice of the nav AI. That was the last time she let her older brother tinker with her ship.

"Rise and shine! The star drive has been disengaged, and the ship has begun it's approach to Hullabryn. Approach will halt at an excessive number of kilometers as previously requested, darling." Arlana started at that, feeling a cold rush of excitement, then left her sleep pod and began performing her toilet in earnest, taking a stim and washing her face. Hullabryn- the mystery planet! She'd only had to detour a few parsecs on her route to see it, so she thought she might as well. Few had the clearance- or interest- to come this close. She was lucky.

"I made some nice, hot brew for you! Mmmm-M! Two percent Arabica extract! Try not to take too long with your hair, not even I can survive the heat death of the universe."

Arlana Ha-hah-ed quietly to herself, pulling on loose pants and grip-bottom socks. "Navi, revert to settings suite A."

"Not so fast! You have to say the magic worrrrrrd-" the computer drawled, making Arlana grimace.

"Please?"

"Nope."

"Next I'm home, I'm feeding my brother to Aunty's rift buffalo." The computer only giggled in response, and Arlana chose to ignore it. As long as everything worked the way it was supposed to, and it WOULD- her brother wouldn't put her in danger after all- she could deal with the computer's annoying attitude for a while.

After some calisthenics, she put her hair back and grabbed the sealed brew canister from it's narrow slot, sliding into the padded pilot's chair. She sipped from the straw in contemplation, then began listing voice commands. After careful positioning, Arlana allowed the ship to settle into high orbit a generous distance away from Hullabryn, choosing not to court fate by risking The Curse. Any closer than the clearly defined radius, and her instruments would be subject to a phenomena that scrambled most AI and fried electronics, no matter the shielding. It worked like a sustained, selective EMP, surrounding the planet in an invisible shell.

But Hullabryn also had a visible shell. Arlana sighed in admiration, and the nav AI hummed in response. Iridescent ropes of aurora wrapped themselves round, moving in slow loops and whorls like oil on water, leaving behind washes of color. But they weren't aurora.

She cast into the qNet and pulled up several databases and essays on Hullabryn she'd collected. The aurora shell had defied physics and spectrographic instruments for hundreds of years, and they continued to do so as Arlana aimed her own array in their direction, to see the effect first-hand. A visual sweep highlighted floating debris. Most of it was probably from the last hundred years, leftovers of investigative probing, but _some_ could be much older. Designs were so varied, and her database wasn't configured for identifying historic technology. She'd heard that sometimes salvage crews, historians, and treasure hunters would go tether fishing in an attempt to snag some valuable debris. Zooming in on the light revealed complex patterns of parallel lines that nested fractally, ever changing and enigmatic. She set her camera to record them and make a holo of the planet. It'd make a nice gift for her niece. She tried zooming in farther, but all she got were more lines and topography too distorted to discern. It was impossible to determine what kind of life, if any, remained on the planet.

She began paging through her collected documents, brushing the hololight with a finger. According to her cache, it was said- by the self-proclaimed descendants of those painfully few that had escaped the calamity all those hundreds of years ago- that the world had a storied history and rich mythology, punctuated by rhythmic periods of boom and bust, sometimes literally. Any notes on the nature and origin of The Calamity- the event that had resulted in the aurora shell and complete isolation of the planet- were speculative. Natives of Hullabryn were said to have begun flocking home from across the stars like homing pigeons. Theories as to why varied from psychic influence to civil war. Either way, all contact ceased, and the prism turned the planet into a mute gem.

Some of the pages she pulled up were from the Brynnian Historical Preservation Society, whose funds and blood were running thin. There was an option to donate credits. Looking at the marbled sphere, she donated 250. Poor saps. A contingent of writers on the qNet thought the Society was full of it, capitalizing off the planet's enigmas. But there was concrete _evidence_ \- ships, cultural artifacts, genetic testing, the long memory of AI and some of the longer lived races. Not that human beings couldn't extend their lives a good long time, but their memories were something else.

But nowadays, couldn't even those be faked? It was hard to take things at face value. Despite that... looking at the gaudy sphere, she couldn't help but think that some of it had to be true.

After a few more tests, she made a small breakfast in the galley and sat in an alcove to eat, bringing up another qNet screen. She voice messaged her brother, not so politely requesting a patch for her nav AI, browsed the news, then sat back in the pilot's chair to contemplate Hullabryn.

A chime let her know she had a new message- it was from the BHPS, thanking her for the donation. They'd sent her a complimentary matter plan for a themed mug. After some hesitation, she hit the download button with a sigh and let the assembler deliver her free gift. She was pleasantly surprised when she pulled out a transparent aluminum beverage globe, handsomely patterned with BHPS's logo- a gold Sierpinski's triangle with a single trema.

* * *

The tips of the wise-woman's ears drooped almost to her jawline, weighed down with hoops and age. They flapped and jangled a little with each deliberate step she took. Otis regarded the woman with apprehension before turning to his wife, but seeing her expression of relief he bit back his protest. They'd already gone to the local clinic, spare as it was, they didn't need to see some sheikah shaman for a second opinion. But Treya had insisted. She'd healed Treya's childhood wasting disease, in addition to treating and advising countless others. Treya trusted her.

"Madame Pom, it's been too long!" she rushed forward and surprised the woman with a hug, "I'm so glad to see you!"

Otis noticed a look of flustered surprise on the woman's face as she awkwardly patted Freya's back. "Yes, dear," the woman croaked out, "I suppose it has. Now, let's take a look at you-" she sat Treya down, "-and your little one." She glanced at Treya's pregnant belly.

* * *

Madame Pom rested in a low chair, her loose, oversized sleeves draped over the arms. Yellowed beams of afternoon light poured through the mottled glass windows, and she watched the traceries of dust motes flick back and forth in lazy, indeterminate paths. A long, long time ago, she would have whiled away the time watching the dust in an effort to avoid her burdens, but now she knew there was no avoiding them. She was too old for those kinds of games, now.

_Games._

She pushed herself to her feet, and began pacing the floor. What kind of games were the gods playing? All the signs had specifically pointed to Treya having one child. One very significant child. She stopped and looked at her shaking hands, then took a ragged breath and sunk into her chair again.

This child had to be the one. She could see signs of old darkness bestirring the stars, her dreams, the land, hard to distinguish from the present darkness as it was. All the old prophecies written by seers past encouraged their successors to watch carefully, for when the darkness stirred the gods would raise up a sword of light to strike it down, a hero to chase it back into its place.

She covered her eyes with her hands and screwed up her face, as if to hide her eyes, or refocus them. Shortly after he'd been born, she'd visited the family's small home, ostensibly to wish Treya well and drop off a few potions, but also to examine the boy. She'd known it would be a boy. It was always a boy.

The new mother had beamed up at her from the bed, features tinged with a pleased exhaustion. The father sat nearby, next to a modest collection of breakfast leavings. He put down a notebook when she walked in, smartly clipping it closed.

Madame Pom concealed her impatience well as they exchanged pleasantries, until finally Treya offered her the opportunity to hold the child. The babe had dark hair and unfocused, milky blue eyes. She rocked him with a practiced midwife's arms and hummed when he expressed discomfiture, then examined his little right hand. Her breath left her body- there! The faintest, smallest of birthmarks- if her eyes did not betray her. As the boy grew older, stronger, the mark would become clearer. Surely?

She did not tell the parents of her suspicions. She breathed an old Hylian blessing over the mother and child, gave the father some words of encouragement, then returned to her home. She wrote a few letters to people who would know better than her what to make of things. They requested that she keep them abreast of the child's doings. Come his eighth birthday, they would send an emissary to examine him.

Now, nearly 5 years later, she was getting new omens. Two yolks in her cuckoo egg, one healthy, one bloody. A trio of midwife-skulltula- the small social spiders- nesting in the wrong corner of the house. A dead keese with open beak pointed west, the birthplace of war and disease, crumpled on her patch of rare, sacred clockflowers.

Another child where there shouldn't be. A harbinger of destruction.

Signs did not just _change_. Had she misread all the ones before?

A few months ago, Treya had come in pale and complaining of nausea, vomiting. A short examination confirmed Pom's bewildered suspicions. Another pregnancy! Treya had been so excited. She'd always wanted two children, a sibling for her five year old son. Her husband echoed her happiness, but Pom detected undercurrents of worry. Another mouth to feed, when they were already struggling?

And Pom didn't need any arcane hints as to how the pregnancy would end. Three months in, and she could already see a faint blue wash under Treya's eyes, an uncommon weariness, a sharpening of the features. Frequent visits to the clinic didn't seem to help.

Pom rose out of her chair again and, hardly thinking, walked to the garden and harvested some rue leaves. She started making a tincture. She spent the evening making it, aliquoting the results into a bottle labeled for fortifying potions. That night, she hardly slept.

The next morning, when she was packing for her visit to Treya's, she forgot to pack the potion bottle. She was secretly relieved, and when she returned home she threw the bottle into the fire, then rushed outside to vomit.

* * *

  
The man eyed the fledgling with a sigh, taking in it's dusty half-feathers and beady, ugly eyes. It was some kind of guay, and looked too young to be wandering from the nest. In a few weeks the helpless little thing would grow into a real pest, joining the rest of the hoard in raiding the field, and he just couldn't let that happen. He lifted a steel toed boot-

  
\- and then suddenly Kandall's face was in the dirt. He coughed, spitting out gritty saliva, then rubbed his eyes and hurriedly looked around to see which of Tama's rams had just broken his ribs. What greeted his eye was a dirty faced, straw haired child wearing a mask of stubborn fury. _Rysa!_ "Child, what do you think you're doing? Are you trying to kill me?" As the man climbed to his feet the little girl dashed in and grabbed the small, feathery bundle, snatching it into a protective basket of fingers. "Oh HO! Oh no, nonono, child, you know what that is?"

"It's a guay! And it's mine now!"

"It's a dirty scavenger, a bird of death! And I KNOW you can't afford to feed an extra mouth, give it he-" but the child had already darted away, slipping past locals going about their business. She darted down side alleys, through a busy mill, over and around piles of refuse until she made it to a small lean-to made of corrugated metal. She stood gasping as she looked down at her fingers, where the hatchling was- thankfully- still safely caged. She hadn't crushed or dropped it. Rysa sighed and crawled into the shade of her make-shift shelter, leaning her back against a crumbling wall. There was stuff carved into it, in relief, but she couldn't read it. She enjoyed running her fingers over the patterns sometimes, and she'd pretend they told a story of her own making.

Carefully, she moved a few fingers and made a cup of her hands. Three dim, red bumps stared up at her from above an oversized yellow beak.

"You're pretty ugly," she said. The hatchling looked like a little old man, all round head, ugly body, grey fuzz, and thin bent neck. It peeped and she widened her eyes. "Duh, I'll bet you're hungry. There's not a lot to go around, but you're not that big anyway." She rubbed her nose, then fished in a pocket and produced a crushed piece of flatbread. "We can share. I hope you can eat this." It could. She fed the three eyed hatchling rolled up pieces of flatbread until it wouldn't eat anymore and fell asleep in her lap. She'd have to find some beetle grubs in the field so it could have some protein. She never saw any birds feeding their young flatbread.

When it excreted on her pants, she wrinkled her nose and flicked the dried waste away with a finger. This close to the desert, lots of the animals didn't waste water, and they weren't choosy about their food. The people were the same. A part of Rysa had briefly considered that the small guay would make a decent snack- protein was expensive- but she violently shoved the thought away. She'd saved it. It was her responsibility now. It was a delicate thing, and it needed her. Even if...

...what Kandall said was right. Three-eyed guay were rare, and said to be a bad sign. The workers at the fiber mill said that if you saw one, someone you loved would die. Or there would be a famine, or a flood, or a plague of fire wyrms. She hadn't known the hatchling had three eyes when she'd head-butted Kandall. She'd just seen... something in the dust, about to get crushed. That wasn't very fair, for something so small and helpless to just- and it wasn't the guay's fault that it was born with three eyes. She carefully brushed the back of its head with a finger, and wondered if her brother would let her keep it. What if Kandall got to him first, told him it had three eyes? The bird stirred again, oversized mouth gaping up at her.

"You're hungry again?! So soon? How am I going to keep feeding you?" She had finished off the flatbread herself without thinking. "Well, you'll have to wait." Till she decided what to do. She didn't... feel anything bad coming from the bird. That's how you could tell, right? If something was evil? You'd feel it in your gut. That's what her brother told her, that there was something inside that would tell her if something was good or bad, from decisions to people.

With the hatchling nestled in the folds of her loose fitting pants, she felt peace. It was just an animal. And it needed her now. She scooped it in her hands again and made her unhurried way through the Rubble, the messy part of town, to her home on the far side. She knew her brother would accept the guay. That was just the kind of person Link was.

* * *

Hey, Randall! I've been having this crazy dream lately, let me tell you about it-

_-Ruby, I keep having this dream. Sometimes it doesn't let me sleep._

I'm walking through a forest of the biggest trees you've ever seen. They're so tall and old that their top branches are all twisted together and barely let any light in. I'm afraid-

_-because I can see things moving in the shadows, and they have eyes kind of like yours, Ruby, except they don't make me feel safe at all. There's things happening out there in the dark that I can't see, making noises like thunder. I think there's lots of big things fighting.. The ground is falling apart, so I run-_

And I hear someone calling me, so I run that way. It's like a pull, familiar, you know? But whoever is calling me is really desperate, and I can't tell if it's because I'm in danger or they're in danger or both. This fire starts coming out of the ground in spurts, and I know this is nuts but bear with me cause its dream logic, but I know that a lot of this rumbling and danger and trouble is coming from one entity. This... monster. And that I've known him for a long time, for an eternity. He was sleeping under there, beneath the ground, and now he's waking up. Finally, I see this beautiful, massive temple. There's a woman standing on the steps, urging me to come inside. They've both been calling me, the woman and the temple.

_I see two figures run inside ahead of me, Ruby, into the huge temple. It looked terrifying, like they were stepping into a mouth._

The temple feels so peaceful and welcoming, urging me forward, I've got a sword all the sudden, and there's this golden light ahead of me, at the end of this hall.

_-and I keep going, I step inside, even though my feet sting and the building seems to groan and shudder. There's this thing in the back, it looks like a clock, a face on a big wall of gears, and in front of it there's a dais with three golden triangles, the kind like you see in math fractals. I feel this overwhelming sadness all around me, and I'm crying too, because EVERYTHING there is sad, every rock and brick and gear, and the machinery is just huge and sprawling, it's like it goes on forever, but it doesn't want me there, either. But because it's in so much pain, I have to try to do something, and I reach out, and the closer my hand gets, the more the machinery shudders, so much until I think it'll fly apart, but just before it does I wake up. It's funny, the triangles reminded me a bit of your eyes, Ruby, but your eyes are much kinder._

* * *

Rysa plays with her friend Soren. He shares food made by his mother and wears a shirt made by his dad. Soren's family often shares their extras with Link and Rysa, which is one of the few ways she gets new clothes. Link is always grateful when he accepts these gifts, but when he turns away there's a sour twist to his mouth. When Rysa is a little older, she will ask Soren's dad if he will teach her how to sew.

When Soren and Rysa hear that Kandall's brother's wife is giving birth, they give each other a _look_. Shortly, they're hiding in the alley across the dirt road from Kandall's brother's house. They hear strained voices and strained cries drifting out the window. After a while, they hear a baby's cry, and a little after that, the wail of a man. Kandall's brother stumbles into the street and curses the sky, the gods, and his new child. They run away, then, and later hear that the child's mother died during the birth. Rysa sits quietly for a long time, making an unfortunate connection, and runs home.

* * *

  
"Why do you forgive me for mom?" Rysa's face still felt hot and sticky as she buried her face in her brother's arm pit, his arm around her shoulder. He grew still then, and she was afraid she'd said the wrong thing, but he slowly drew away and put both hands on her shoulders as she continued to stare down.

"Rysa, look at me." When she did, and it took a while, he said, "Mom tried so hard to stay here for you, for us, but she couldn't. Mom _wanted_ you. Right then, her greatest wish was that you would come into this world. I remember, I saw her. I didn't understand it too well, then, but she was so excited for you to be here. And eventually, I was too, and so was dad."

"Then why did he-"

"Sometimes people get sick," he cut her off quickly, "sometimes they get weak, and heart sick. Dad was beginning to get over it when he got ACTUALLY sick. It just happened." She had begun to let her gaze wander, so he gently grasped her chin and made her face him again, "So I don't ever want you to blame yourself. Okay? No one is to blame. No one is at fault- least of all you. Do you understand?" She nodded and broke into fresh tears as Link pulled her into a bear hug.

"Why do things like this have to happen?" she asked, muffled.

"I don't know, but... sometimes- something good can come out of something bad. Like Ruby- if she hadn't been lost in the dust then you never would've met and become friends, right?"

"Yeah, I guess." The guay squawked, hearing her name, and flew down to Rysa's side, where the bird began to pluck at a loose string in her coat. "...but I think she would've been happier with her mother."

Link shrugged. "That just isn't something we can know. C'mon, now, we don't want the cuccoo eggs to overcook."

* * *

The world has always felt like it was subtly tilting on it's axis, to the point where Rysa didn't even notice anymore. So it's still shocking when- when Rysa turns 15 years old- things flip sideways, and monsters attack a caravan passing near town. Link somehow slays them, and becomes a hero. He was always a hero to Rysa, so it doesn't make that much of a difference. It makes sense. It's discomfiting, but it still makes sense when Madame Pom drops by to treat Link's injuries, and she draws his attention to the mark on his hand, and they talk about his dreams, and she reveals that he has a great destiny. When he has to leave, they hug and cry, and she makes him take Ruby so that the guay can watch his back. He promises that he will be smart and careful, and send her letters via Ruby. He says that he loves her very much, and that she must be very brave and courageous for him and everyone else in the town. She knows how to be strong. She had a good example.

* * *

In my own way, I can hear her screaming. Screaming screaming screaming, ragged cries. It doesn't stop for what feels like a long time, but I know it's much shorter. In my way, I can see her leaning over my dead master, clawing at the crumpled crack in his collapsed chest armor. The material from a brighter age, meant to impart strength and protection, has failed in the face of superior forces, numbers, and weapons from an age much older. Awash in the fresh blood of my master, I think the child might cause more damage, from the way she's carrying on. I might join her in this fruitless display of emotion, if I had the capacity.

I don't know if this has happened before. In his hands, in my master's hands, I'd felt stronger than I had in ages. His heart, both fierce and gentle, made me shine with the purest of light as we cut down foe after soul-less foe in the name of our quest, in order to protect those we loved. That gentleness... is that what did us in? I don't understand. I don't think this has happened to me before. It's not something that's supposed to happen. Was I not strong enough? Surely, I have been cursed, and now the sacred power my master carried will fall into the hands of the enemy, and all will be lost, and there is nothing I can do, for eons ago I was locked into myself, and now my only form of expression is to cut.

He knew how to talk to me, somehow, my Master. Somehow, he knew there was something in the blade he held that did not sleep, and when he lay awake in the deepest watches of the darkness, he would speak to me. He would apologize. He could tell I was tired. But I'm not supposed to be tired.

As I feel the hoard of the enemy moving closer, someone grasps my hilt. It is her! But she is not my master. Deep inside her is something alien, a gear that doesn't quite fit into the machinery, and I bite her hands in response, my hilt growing hot. She cannot speak to me! Surely, only my Master could ever speak to me!

She gasps, but does not drop me, no matter how I sputter and hiss- **_CHILD, PUT ME DOWN_**. You are not my master, and this is not your battle! She screams, and I can feel the flesh of her hands blistering, but still she holds, and as the closest monster approaches she throws herself into its path and swings me wildly, and it is enough, and the monster stumbles back, because my blade is also hot with a burning light, and it is not the same light as when I was held by her brother.

"I WON'T LET YOU GO-!!" she grinds loudly out of clenched teeth, as she leaps forward and delivers the coup de grace to the fallen beast, and although the gear doesn't fit, and I fear the wheels of fate will not spin in our favor, I can no longer reject her. I feel her spirit inside me, working its way down from the handle. This pain, this raging anguish, it is something we share, and we continue to leap forward like a wave, and I slice like the silvered tongue of a vengeful serpent because- _THEY **KILLED** HIM!!_ My Master, the only one who would speak to me, since the first. With ruined hands, she finishes her brother's battle, and like me, the sacred light of Courage cannot help but accept her as host.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: keep rue away from pregnant women.
> 
> Another fun fact: The segment at the end might be one of my favorite things I've ever written.
> 
> I've tried to pack a lot of implied information into few words- especially in the last chaptet- so I'd love to hear your thoughts, questions, and interpretations.
> 
> I'm not sure if I'll write anymore for this. Maybe if inspiration strikes, or people are interested in specific aspects.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
